Places in the Altered Carbon Universe, Season 1
''HARLAN'S WORLD'' Harlan’s World is one of the Settled Worlds. It is 90% water, with an Earth-habitable environment. Minimal terraforming was necessary for settlement. Flora and fauna are very similar to Earth, and the settlers brought with them many varieties of Terran animals and plants that are now part of the planet’s ecosystem. The original settlers were a mix of Japanese and Hungarian/Eastern European. Harlan’s World is the birthplace of Takeshi Lev Kovacs and his sister, Reileen Kawahara. Buildings on Harlan’s World use technology scavenged from the cryoships that landed there, and also metals, ceramics and plastics fabricated from the planet’s raw materials, processed using the equipment the settlers brought with them. The design of Harlan’s World is similar in emotional feel to the work of Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag, specifically his paintings of “Sci-fi Suburbia,” which juxtapose a naturalistic outdoors with industrial- looking futuristic machinery and recognizable tropes of 80’s suburban life. STRONGHOLD Stronghold is the ‘rebel base’ of the Uprising, located in the badlands of Harlan’s World. Stronghold is a fortress built underground, fitted among the ruins of an Elder Civilization city that had not yet been discovered by archeologues, found by Quell. Caves, tunnels, sudden wide vistas that fall into an abyss, as well as buildings cut into the rock or nestled under alien ruins, all with Songspires larger than redwoods branching upwards toward the shafts of sun coming through the rocks overhead. Stronghold has defenses built into the rocky valley that it is buried under. Entrance and exit is through hidden caves in the valley sides. After the fall of the Uprising, Stronghold became an archeological site of great significance. BAY CITY An urban sprawl covering an area of what is now Northern California, including what is currently San Francisco. The city is schizophrenic, architecture from as early as the 19th century all the way up to the 24th, with an emphasis on the 21st century that’s been rebuilt and repurposed, with things built haphazardly into the interstices of existing buildings. Long ago running out of space on the ground, the only way for the city to go was up. Megaskyscrapers claw for the sky, covering whole neighborhoods in shadow. Bubblefabs -- the ad hoc FEMA trailers of the future -- have been repurposed as homes for the “grounders,” a term that refers to pretty much anyone who isn’t a Meth or part of the elite class that works for the Meths (all their lawyers, doctors, financial and corporate elite.) Fabs come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but all are worn, weathered, and whatever color they used to have long ago faded away in the ocean air and high pollution. Fabs are densely packed, stacked, glued, or sewn together to create strange mosaics of odd shapes and sizes. Fabs come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but all are worn, weathered, and whatever color they used to have long ago faded away in the ocean air and high pollution. Fabs are densely packed, stacked, glued, or sewn together to create strange mosaics of odd shapes and sizes. Within Bay City are the various locations like Fell Street Police Station, The Raven Hotel, Licktown with its many brothels and strip joints, the Wei Clinic, the Panama Rose, Psychasec Alcatraz, and so on. Meth residences like Suntouch House are the only “new” spaces in this city, and reflect the ultimate luxury and indifference to cost that comes with an accumulation of wealth over multiple lifetimes.